One Day Winner

Well after a bit of jiggery pokery with Random.org

my World Book Night copy of "One Day", which was offered up to one of my blog readers here, will soon be on its way to:

Beverly 

who wrote:  "My son's girlfriend and I have been reading books then watching the movies adapted from them (we saw The Help today...awesome!) since our guys prefer battles and cars and action. I'd love to have this on our book and a movie list :)"

Congratulations!  Please let me know your postal address (you can e-mail via my profile) and I will take a trip to the Post Office.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Counterfeit Exclusive!

Welcome to August's Counterfeit Kit Challenge Master Forger Blog Hop - with an exclusive sketch by Allison Davis from Sketch Support - this month's CKCB sponsor!  If you've joined me from Kim's blog you are on track, if not and you want to see what the other Master Forgers have been up to then please check out the CKCB for a full list of the hop.

I'm cheating a whole lot this month ... because when I saw the sketch I knew I had the perfect photos for it along with the perfect papers .... but they weren't in this month's kit - they were in July's!!!!  So forgive me - I couldn't resist!  Here's the perfect sketch:

and here's my take on it - the photos are from the most marvellous bike tour of Barcelona in April.   It was a brilliant way to get a flavour of the city and culminated in a lovely lunch at the beach.

I had to do some careful cutting of my Basic Grey "Assembly Required" bicycle paper to make just one sheet of that and one sheet of the brown "Confession" paper stretch across the two pages.

The other papers are strips and scraps from my July kit - making 5 patterned papers in all on my page - fitting perfectly with a challenge over at Sarah's Cards - one of my favourite online shops!

As you can see No.1 Son's girlfriend struggled to eat her lunch in a ladylike manner! The tour was very entertaining and apparently there are Fat Tire Bike Tours in Paris, London and Berlin as well so hoping to try them again on future city breaks!

Now if you want to see another interpretation of that fabulous sketch please pop over to Margie, where she'll have stuck to the brief more closely than me and used this month's kit!

P.S. There's still a little time to tell me why you'd like to receive, read and pass on a World Book Night book here.

P.P.S.  Someone, somewhere on the Master Forger Hop today is giving away a little something to a commenter ... could you be the lucky recipient?

Flipping Sketches!!!

I love using sketches so this month's challenges at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog have been right up my street.  August has been sponsored by Sketch Support who have some super sketches on their blog (and two books of them for this month's prize - details here). One of the things I love about sketches is that you can twist and turn and flip them to create whole new pages - here is a double page spread I made with July's Counterfeit Kit for a challenge over on UKScrappers based on a recent Pagemaps sketch from June 2011 - the left hand side sticks fairly closely to the original and the right hand side is simply the sketch flipped upside down.  Throw on some stars and some extra shapes to tie the the pages together and the two halves make a whole!

Anyway, back to the CKCB and August's 3rd CKCB Challenge: to use one of Sketch Support's sketches but flip it in some way first!

I used this single page sketch from June to make a card for Challenge #1 and I used the same sketch to create my page for this challenge- turning it through 90 degrees first and then flipping it vertically!

My thanks go to Ally & Nic at my local crop who helped me with the title: I couldn't think of a punchy title and was explaining that my friend and I were looking deeply unattractive in our snorkelling masks when they started singing "Deeply Dippy" by Right Said Fred!

Can you see the likeness to the sketch?  Everything is from my August Counterfeit Kit and the flowers are again based on a tutorial by Dapfnie which is available on UKScrappers here.

One Day

A while back I was lucky enough to be the winner of Alison's book giveaway and be the next to read one of the 2011 World Book Night books - "One Day" by David Nicholls.

It sat here for a while before I decided it should reach the top of my to-read pile, then yesterday I realised that the film was due out any day and I always prefer to read a book before I see a film, so better get cracking!  Several hours later, I had a break to cook a meal for the family, and then returned to this completely engrossing book.  I wanted to know more, I simply could not wait to find out how it ended.  And then I was sad that I had kept going, because now I did know and the book was finished and there weren't any pages left to read (and not many tissues left either)!

So thank you Alison (and Ruth who gave the book to her (and the World Book Night Organisation for sending Ruth her books)) and especially thank you to David Nicholls for bringing Dex and Em (or should that be Em and Dex) into my life for one day. I loved the way there were snippets of life from the last 20 years told through letters, conversations, diary entries and how believable the characters were - real people, living real lives, making real choices.

And now comes your chance to read this wonderful book (a special must-pass-it-on-to-someone-else-via-your-blog-after-reading edition) - just leave me a comment below to say why you'd like to read it and check back in a week to see if you're the one!  [International enquiries most welcome]  That will give me time to re-read and savour the pages before I decide whether I can brave watching the film in public - I could always wear dark glasses for leaving the cinema!

An experiment in journalling

I love journalling on my pages - to me that's the point of scrapbooking - it's important to add the story behind a photo as well as adding the who, what, where & when.  Last year we had a lovely family break in Northumberland and visited Alnwick Gardens (the castle is famous for being Harry Potter's Hogwarts) which were spectacular!

We visited the Poison Garden - layout is in the pipeline - and loved the spectacular fountains and water sculptures everywhere, especially in the Serpent Garden.

I was experimenting with having several "stories" running across a page: labelling the photos, telling the general story of where we were, and adding some extra info about one particular photo - namely No.1 Son showing us how skinny he is by being able to fit into a gap I could barely slide sideways through! 
What do you think - do the three types of journalling work, or are they confusing?

I've used my August Counterfeit Kit, but no orange papers this time!  This page also fits in with Shimelle's recent challenge to incorporate 3 things on your page (journalling spots & large stamped butterflies, types of journalling) and also Scrapbookers Anonymous's challenges (discovered through Julie's blog) to use journalling spots and/or stash beginning with A - August's Counterfeit Kit ... or possibly American Craft cardstock as a base!

Feitercounting!

August's first challenge over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog is (naturally enough) using a sketch from this month's sponsor Sketch Support, but it comes with a devious twist: either use a page sketch to make a card or use a card sketch to make a page!!!

As you can see I chose a one page sketch (#10 from June) and took inspiration from it to make a card with my August Kit  ... another one to simply say "Hello" to a friend.  The flowers are based on a tutorial by Dapfnie (the third placed winner of the UKS Scrap Factor competition) which is available here.  I liked the sketch a lot and have also made a page where it is much more recognisable - but you'll have to wait until later in the month for that - sorry!

Shimelle has been inspiring people this weekend with 3 days of challenges (still open for prize participation until Sunday 21st) including one to use only half your page ... and I thought I'd combine this with the other half of the CKCB challenge i.e. to take a card sketch and make a page from it!  I chose Sketch Support's #8 card sketch from June as I thought it would lend itself nicely to a page with plenty of "white" space.

My photo is from last year's holiday in Egypt, showing us bare foot and happy on the last night at the shisha bar.  The photo is not the best quality, taken in poor light by a passer by, but it's the only one I have of the whole group - we were rarely all together as the divers & snorkellers had very different holiday schedules!

I did actually try the shisha pipe (very brave for an ardent NON-smoker), but failed miserably to get a tune ;o)

Ten on the Tenth: Top 10 Tools

Today I've been thinking about my 10 must-have scrapbooking tools - what would I really not like to do without?

In no particular order (well alphabetical, but not importance):

Black Foam Dots - these are less likely to show under things and, thrifty as ever, I use the foam surrounding the dots too!
Corner Rounder Punch - probably my oldest tool
Didi Glue Dots - perfect instant sticking for tiny things; this roll is crumpled because I had a 15 minute tussle to get it back out of the dog's mouth - thankfully they still work fine!
Finger Knife - paired with a metal ruler I can, and do, cut anything  
Glue Eraser - great for cleaning up little squidges of ...
Hema's Photo Glue - cheap and cheerful (apart from having to get it from Holland) this re-positionable liquid glue is wonderful!
Pentel Hybrid White Gel Pen - after trying all sorts of brands this is the one that works for me
Precision File Set - love this for filing the edges when decorating bare chipboard with paper
Sewing Machine - great for adding texture to a page (and Hubby's wedding present to me ♥ )
Sizzlits Round-a-Bout Dies (and my Sidekick I guess) - love this font

Quite interesting to realise how many "excess" tools I have - punches, trimmers, stamps, pens, dies, rulers, eyelet setters, circle cutters, shape templates, scoring board, embossing tools, decorative scissors, staplers - but although they don't make my top 10, I won't be getting rid of them!!

Check out Shimelle's Blog for more Tens on the Tenth